Rice coach Bailiff: Edge goes to Fanuzzi at QB

Judging by Rice coach David Bailiff’s comments Monday, it appears senior Nick Fanuzzi has moved ahead of incumbent Taylor McHargue at quarterback.

“If I had to give an edge to somebody right now it would be Nick, because he’s taken care of the football,” Bailiff said at his weekly press conference. “At that position you have to take care of the football. We can’t have mistakes, especially costly turnovers, there.”

Rice came out in the Wild Owl formation to begin last week’s 73-34 loss to Houston. Fanuzzi was 3-of-9 passing for 81 yards and a touchdown and McHargue was 3-of-8 for 27 yards.

The quarterback situation became murky following a 38-20 loss to Tulsa on Oct. 22. In that game, McHargue had three turnovers (two interceptions and a fumble) on the Owls’ first 11 plays and was benched for the second time this season.

McHargue, who began the season as the starter, has committed seven turnovers in Conference USA play.

Asked whether he plans to continue to use both quarterbacks, Bailiff said: “It’s something I’d like to get away from.”

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Chris Boswell is among 20 semifinalists for the Lou Groza Award, presented annually to the nation’s top placekicker.

Boswell has converted a career-high 12 field goals in 14 attempts, including a career-best 51-yarder against Houston, and all 22 extra-point attempts this season. With four games remaining, Boswell is five field goals shy of the school record 17 set by James Hamrick in 1985.

14 Responses

That’s good, because with our incredible defense, all we need is a QB who can manage games and protect the ball. Granted, it would be great to have a QB with a skill set that fit this offense, or who could move the ball, or convert a 3rd down.. but those are luxuries in C-USA, where a steady defense will prevail in a typical 9-7 outcome.

Hopefully he doesn’t count Petersen as a QB. Because the way to beat UTEP is to pound them with the run game. They are giving up 5.2 yds/attempt this season. A heavy dose of the Wild Owl, like we did against UH, would seem to help our defense and give us the best chance to win.

However, knowing this coaching staff, Fanuzzi will start and throw the ball 10 times in a row.

Fanuzzi really has been better than McHargue since he took over, maybe he’s finally gotten over his lackluster game performances compared to practice. McHargue really can’t throw as effectively as Fanuzzi, and despite his scrambling abilities, it’s clear Fanuzzi gives us the best chance to win. Best thing we can do is preserve the redshirts on our freshmen and let McHargue and them duke it out in spring.

I rarely would say this, but this is.. actually, I thought better, so I’ll just say ridiculous. Fanuzzi has been terrible in both games, as he has been for two years. Yeah, he protects the ball, so we go 3-and-out and punt. Whoop-dee-doo. The only thing worse than playing like garbage on our way to another losing season, is wasting playing time on someone whose development is useless to our future. These are wasted, pointless snaps.

I agree with Johnathan. Fanuzzi is the better passer. Effective play calling would help any quarterback’s game. That hasnt been the case, unfortunately. I like what I see in Peterson and Smith. Hopefully our running and passing game will improve with Fanuzzi at QB and some calls that arent “predictable”. And by the way, for the record,
And by the way,it was Fanuzzi who was 3 for 8 and McHargue who was 3 for 9 in the last game.

And it only took him a season and a half to decide on a quarterback. Ridiculous. And when do they begin to realize that the QB, RB, and offensive coaches aren’t getting the full potential out of their team.

BTW, thanks for your coverage of the presser, as Bailiff was obviously quick to hurry up with his spiel and hand over the mic. Some abjectly stupid praise of the sputtering offense and coverage by the DB’s, the typical idiocy about great young men as if he’s a guidance counselor instead of a head coach, yadda yadda. If you could follow up this week with Greenspan about his thoughts on the football program, that would be welcome by Rice fans.

I know that the QB play has not been great; but I am amazed at how many dropped passes that Rice has had in each of their games. It seems as though there are at least 5-6 drops by our top receivers per game. Those drops slow momentum and stop drives. Those are not the fault of the QB’s.

I dread next year with the QB controversary coming all over again like 2010… ugh

Maybe the receivers would not drop the passes so often if they got comfortable with one quarterback. A higher level of trust gets developed through time and practice. This flip flopping of quarterbacks has hurt the offense dramatically by compromising consistency at its best. A little creative play calling wouldn’t hurt.